Re: Check your default window size!

[Alexandre Franke <afranke gnome org>]

On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 10:49 PM,  <mcatanzaro gnome org> wrote:
> Hi,

Hi,

> Sometimes it's easy for a developer to forget what a new user sees when
> opening an app for the first time. Some of our apps (*cough* email clients
> *cough*) have default window sizes that are waaay too small. Check yours
> out! Increase the default window size if needed.

At first I read the mail subject and was thinking “yes please!”, then
I read the rest of your mail and was caught by surprise. While I agree
that a minimum size needs to be large enough for an app to be useful,
my general observation is that many apps are actually too large (or at
least too wide) by default. On my 1050×1680 screen (yes, it’s narrower
than it is tall, aka portrait):
* Software opens with a bit that’s off screen (about the width of an
app tile) but can be resized to fit so I don’t see a valid reason for
the overflow.
* Recipes opens narrow enough, but then if I browse my way to a screen
with a sidebar (say “Indian cuisine”) it resizes and overflows too,
and this time I can’t resize it to fit even if I go back to a
sidebar-less screen.
* Evince regularly opens a window that’s too big for my any of my
screens, either in height or width. It seems Evince struggles with my
“2 monitors but not in a rectangle shape” layout and there are already
a few bug reports for that.

It seems many apps (re)implement their own window size and position
management with inconsistent behaviour. Maybe it’s time for a GNOME
goal to fix this situation?

Somewhat related, since not too long ago (I’d say 3.26, maybe 3.24)
Nautilus randomly forgets it’s size and will open a very small window
(with the sidebar displayed, the content area fits slightly less than
a row in height and than 2 icons in width).

P.S.: I know I should file bug reports/check for open ones and I dare
say I’m generally not bad at that, I just haven’t had time to collect
proper evidence for those yet so for now they’re just sticky notes on
my desk.

-- 
Alexandre Franke
GNOME Hacker & Foundation Director